Oh, this age! How tasteless and ill bred it is!

[rodew]

give me salt

Without your voice, my love, without your words,

without your dragged vowels,

without your breath of frozen flowers,

what do I have left, my love?

I have nothing. The whisper of the wind

and the silence of the forest.

(...)

I live in this wasteland of feelings,

lost in these hills,

neither the mountains, nor the rocks

neither the willows, nor the trees

let my soul find a shade.

My love... where have you gone?

Your memory nourishes my delusions.

I walk firmly thorugh the crops

but I have no route, no destination,

no sense of any direction.

(...)

I wither, my love, I rot.

I need new words for my land,

I want your hungry mouth for mine,

I want you to drink from my thirsty gaze.

I need your hands on my legs.

I want you to take off my clothes and

I need you to see me, green and tanned,

like a happy summer field, forgetful of the fall.

I want you to rain with water of unknown streams,

and to pour yourself on me.

Give me words, my love,

give me salt for my fields.

[rodew]

hungry

It’s probably too early to tell you “I love you”

because maybe I don’t.

I touch you with my thoughts as you walk by my side

and I admire your eyes, ravines of anger and pain.

I love like that, too. Angry, with hunger for more,

with ache, rage and fear.

Like a watchful cat, bristly, that claws the gaps

of tenderness that sometimes you provide.

I don’t love you for your virtues, that is too easy,

I love you for your martyrdoms, for the terrible flaws

that peep out of your mouth sometimes.

I’d bite them and, with my tongue, I’d swallow them all.

I am like the bogeyman, surviving on garbage, on filth,

and, in the shadows, I thrive.

In the darkness, in the hidden, I think of you shamelessly

and during daytime I agonize while I fill my days with pretensions

of indiference.

I hate a calm sea or a soothing breeze.

I prefer the waves, the storms and the noise.

It’s too early to tell you that I love you

because you look at me sometimes and then

I loathe you. You move

as if the earth and tides belonged to you

and sometimes they do.

They bow to your boyish cravings and I

take

a

deep

breath

because I am amazed

by the way

your ego tortures the world.

[rodew]

to a winter lover

I see you looking inside my eyes

I see you drinking from them,

lonely, deserted and tired

as if they were lakes

where a distant blinking lighthouse shines

and I feel

touches of heat coming from my fingers.

Sometimes you touch me

when we walk down the street,

like a flying bird in a sweeping move,

its wing touching a puddle and the waves stay.

I hear you.

I hear you thinking and I feel

a whirpool, a sudden flush of angst

pains and sorrows, some happiness,

sweetness and some other poems

that fall from your eyes tearing

in two this night.

This sweet night.

This cold night.

This night in which we walk.

I breath your words because they are life.

Life from other places,

hurting life,

loving life,

a life so colorful mine pales and ages

all grey and withered

compared to your agony.

You taste bitter, like a piece of lemon,

you taste like surprise and calm,

you taste like a kiss.

Like a thought and long kiss,

like a winter Sunday, like a fireplace,

like wind that razes,

like the touch of your hand,

like the look in your eyes, like life.

You taste like life that goes on and does not come back.

[rodew]

conversations between R and E (Fragment I)

R. But of course I think love is beautiful. The love other people have for each other is. Then again, my love is different. I love from the shadow - like Neruda said. I love from anxiety, from pleasure, from the darkness of my solitude when the sun goes down. I love with anger, with pain, without breath. I don’t want to love you like that. I don’t want to love you like ivy crawling from your balcony, intertwining my limbs with yours. I don’t want to love you like the snow, smothering every bit of green. My love ain’t beautiful, I am excessive in my passions, I drink and I never quench my thirst. I feel, in every inch of my skin, an urge to yell. And time passes as my love comes and goes. It is a dance I don’t know how to dance yet, and I can tell you don’t want to.

[rodew]

to a dangerous former self - a winter poem

There is nothing as promising as the winter cold

for the first time since you left,

they've announced snow for a few days.

My cheeks burn with the stingy air

and the only hand that holds my bag is pink and hurts.

I'm alive again.

I have survived you and you no longer poison my thoughts.

The cold, the heat, seasons and time

have washed you away.

I feel you sometimes lurking behind my eyes

when I look into a dirty mirror

or when I stare into my mother's lonely dark eyes.

And this cold, this sweet odorless cold,

this frost bite on my face

somehow cleans you from my gaze.

I walk, rushing through the empty streets

jumping over the ice puddles.

I feel so light, as if I had wings,

as if I could start flying at any point

because you don't live in me anymore

and thus my burden is half

of what it was.

The winter weather kills,  

barrens, and cleans.

It killed you, my love,

and it saved me.

[rodew]

the end of the summer

I cut my hair by the end of the summer.

I usually do it every time seasons change

and I watch the locks floating down my shoulders

like dead hair snakes.

My head feels lighter and my thoughts as well.

I like the way the hairdresser’s fingers touch my skull -

a permitted invasion of myself -

and the time seems to stop at the salon,

and everyone has time for a break

from reality.

The world outside may be burning,

like it did last night,

but in there, there is a quiet peace that makes you

easy in the heart.

As the hair gradually covers the floor I say goodbye

to the heat and the late mornings. I say goodbye

to the sun, the sea and to riding a car with the windows

rolled down. I say goodbye to my summer self,

to two piece bathing suits and fresh fruit.

[rodew]

non kafkian metamorphosis

Winter struck me like a storm would strike a tree.

I tried to keep my feet close to the ground,

but I ended up falling on my knees. Or flying,

depending on what tree you are thinking of.

Winter had washed me clean,

the cold had desinfected my soul.

I could feel pretty again and

it had been almost a year since you had gone.

In my tiny little apartment, with no heating and no light

I watched the sunrise and sunset

drinking and laying back.

I couldn't remember a happiest winter since a very long time.

A time with pig tails and big bright eyes.

It doesn't snow in Madrid

but I wished it did.

I wanted to feel the kiss of flakes on my cheek.

I was a tree being carried by the wind.

Flapping my branches, colorful ones.

Red, yellow, brown, my leaves were falling down.

The whole city was covered with them, and children yelled

"colorful snow!".

My pain, my sorrows, my tears,

they were scattered around

and I left. A leafless tree riding the cold air

in search of new griefs to wear.

[rodew]

In need of that river now

[rodew]

what you will never know or the art of platonism-

Love from afar is my specialty.  

I look at it flapping my wings,

like a moth in the night,

going towards a yellow light.

I observe the nooks on your forehead

when you frown and your skin

as if it were a map.

You are unconquered land

and I am a scout.

Or maybe I’m a pirate

in need of treasures that

only you hold.

I daydream while I pretend

and happy, in this idle job, I spend my days.

[rodew]

Summer

Idle mornings where the heat is

heavy and the spirit too.

We sweated last night while

we pulled and pushed each other

on our bed.

Your smell, like the smell of rain,

makes me feel

something.

I don't quite know what it is.

Sometimes I want to kiss it,

sometimes I want to scream.

And just like animals we crawl

back to each other

in this lazy dawn.

Like dogs that drink water

on a summer noon

we lick eachothers' skin.

We pant, we breathe, we let each other

feel the pain and the relief.

And we fall on each other -

shocks of pleasure in

my legs.

There is nothing to be said.

We crawl back to our corners

in this tiny little bed.  

[rodew]

"As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery."

C. P. Kavafis

[rodew]

Spring this year

The silence of the city scared me.

Where once there were

incessant noises around,

now a slow and steady white hush

creeped in every turn.

I started listening to my neighbours' chats.

They argued about silverware,

their mothers and their jobs.

We had to keep quiet because

in that ominous tranquility there

was so much space for a wrong word.

The days started feeling alike,

it didn't matter if it was Monday or Sunday,

the silence was the same.

The birds, though, cried out loud.

They filled the sky looking for prey,

mating season had started and

nothing else mattered for them.

The cats started strolling through the streets.

Packs of kittens chasing bugs.

They came into the gardens

and jumped from fences to rooftops.

It was sunny and the streets were quiet.

Nothing else mattered to them.

There were ants swarming around my kitchen

and moths on my bathroom sink.

Nothing mattered to them, other

than the fact that it was spring.

[rodew]

Reflections in my kitchen

Sometimes I feel

something raging inside me.

Like little vipers

craving to exit my body through my mouth.

Full of poison, full of anger,

I sit silently and let life go by.

I observe,

I sense,

I meditate.

Sometimes I feel

something soothing inside me.

Like soft dandelion petals

being carried away

by the wind.

They don't know where they'll go.

They don't care.

And I let life pass through me

like sweet summer air.

Sometimes I feel

some sort of sorrow inside me.

Like a stinky black oil

that floods my organs

and paralises me.

And every word I say

is polluted by this grease.

The kindest sound

turns into a black cry;

the softest kiss, into

a harsh scratch.

Sometimes I feel

everything inside me.

The world,

the stars,

the sky,

the trees,

the people

I've met,

and the ones

that left.

The silence,

the noise,

the anger,

the pain,

the happiness

and the rain.

[rodew]

Late night thoughts

There was a moment when we kept going.

I remember thinking we could stop

and get off that car

that we rode without brakes.

The speed frightened me.

Everything outside was a blur

and we were there

in the middle of everything,

but we were not moving.

We smoked, we drank, we hid.

We really did not care.

There was a moment when you lied,

when your lips dropped little pieces of deception like

"You are the moon, the stars,

you eyes are like deep blue lagoons

and I don't care about your past".

There was moment when I believed you,

when I drank your words like

there was no water at all,

when I looked into your eyes and I thought

that all the life I'd known was a lie.

That the only thing that mattered was you

and the only thing I cared about was us.

There was a moment when we crashed

and that foggy world became defined,

a moment in which I learned

you never cared and

all the pretty words faded into the air.

And I left, I never wanted to look back.

The years passed, the music changed.

Memories started feeling old and pale.

And just like that you left as well

my thoughts, my mind, my breath.

There was a moment when I let go,

when I told to myself no more

of this.

I locked you into my head

and threw away the key.

But I must admit that late at night

sometimes I think

about those beautiful words

and how you made me feel,

and a little part of me hopes

that sometimes you also think

of me.  

[rodew]

To someone who left

I let the cold dark breeze touch me.

It was summer in the north

and for the first time I felt

some sort of relief.

I let the clear yellow moonlight touch me.

I let the green grass touch my back

and laying there in the open,

I felt full of life.

The loneliness of a dog barking,

the sound of cicades.

The night is silent, they say,

but it's full of thoughts.

There were shooting starts crossing the sky

and I couldn’t stop my mind.

Racing through memories

I was all at once.

A child, a teen,

a young girl, a mom.

You were never next to me

but I loved you still.

I felt the heat of the sun trapped inside the ground

like a secret only we both knew.

[rodew]

Like in the movies

I guess I won't get to tell you that every time I watch a sex scene in a standard romantic movie, I cry.

When the couple finally gets in bed and they make sweet sweet love.

I cry.

It reminds me of the first time between you and me. When we did it, there was music playing in my head, and it just felt that we were part of a perfect beautiful world.

Like in the movies.

It ended too.

[rodew]

Lynx eyes (fragment)

(...)

Your claws on my back

draw blood coloured lines

and in this universe of linen sheets

it is only you and me.

Whispers

of memories that we try to get back.

I am the sun, the laughter, the red wine.

You are the moonlight, the forest

and the dark.

And in every bite of me

there's a song for us.

(...)

I am not their kind.

I bite, I lick, I push and pull,

I cry.

I touch my breasts when I am asleep.

I walk outside naked at night.

And, like a black cat, I look at the moon.

I smoke and the ashes leave a trail behind.

I am nothing more than the breeze,

nothing more than the dark corners of the mind.